Andre Iguodala

The Thunder just can’t catch a break this season. Kevin Durant is still out with a foot injury and now Serge Ibaka will join him on the sidelines.

Ibaka underwent surgery this week to help address discomfort in his knee. Apparently, Ibaka had been experiencing soreness since February. Despite setting up a management plan to help alleviate the pain, the Thunder ultimately decided that surgery was the best option.

Ibaka is expected to be out between four and six weeks. If all goes well in his recovery, Ibaka should be able to return for the Thunder’s first round series, should they hold off the Pelicans for the eighth playoff spot.

As a result of the timeline, Ibaka’s regular season is over. He’s safe to drop in redraft leagues. Ibaka’s MRI prior to the surgery revealed no structural or long-term issues so Ibaka is a great keeper for next season.

Man, off an emotional win beating the Gizz (I hope that catches on), the Pistons go back-to-back and lose in Philly. Seems like that kind of emotional high/low happens all the time! Shoulda bet some money on Philly with probably a good betting line against em.

And it was pretty easy to see how Detroit lost with Reggie Jackson (4-17), Jodie Meeks (2-12), and Spencer Dinwiddie (2-11) combining for 7-40 from the field! That FG% isn’t even legal at 17.5%! That shooting percentage is statutory rape! But swooning in all cool and ready to rob the cradle was the 44% from my boy Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, the only shooter who could hit anything going 7-16. Normally the lead for this game would be R-Jax’s trip-dub (11/11/10/0/0), but with 5 TO and that shooting %, he was pretty poopy. KCP isn’t going to suddenly be a multi-cat stud, but it’s back-to-back 20 point games with a 20/8/2/1/0 line last night and a trey. What I really like was his aggressiveness driving to the hole, netting 5-6 FT and he’s 7-9 from the stripe the past two games after a stretch with virtually no freebies. He’s taken 14+ shots in 6 of 7 games and at least 10 shots in 13 of 15 taking a bigger role in the O with R-Jax able to probe (I can only think of South Park every time I hear a broadcast say that…). Of course the FG% will be a struggle, but if your team build can handle it/if it’s a punt, the low TO and decent steals make him a solid add in the stretch run. Here’s what else happened last night in fantasy basketball:

Tracking Rudy Gobert‘s path to the NBA has been movie worthy. After an accident at his former job at the local steel mill, Rudy had Jon Favreau (he really could be French!) keep his grades up in exchange for Rudy helping Jonny out with the ladies. Gobert almost gave up on his dream for basketball, but Charles S. Dutton gave a heartfelt speech on BEING REAL! Utah fans tried carrying Gobert off the court chanting “Rudy! Rudy!” after that win against the Spurs last Tuesday, but it was a big hazard to the overhead lights.

Derrick Favors‘ ankle turned into a kankle over the weekend, but luckily X-rays were negative and he’s day-to-day. No reason for the lowly Jazz to throw him out there gimpy. Monsieur Elbow time! Filling in for Favors on Friday night, Rudy had one of the best games of his young career for 9/11/4/1/5 shooting 2-2 FG and 5-6 FT. Followed it up with a start last night next to Enes Kanter for 7/9/0/2/3 in 31 minutes. Playing with the big boys! A wingspan that would make a pterodactyl jealous, Gobert should murder blocks for you if you’re able to stream him through the couple starts he’s likely to get this week. No timetable for Favors, but big men + kankles = John Goodman. I mean, not good for a speedy return.

Boy did the Fantasy God of Injuries not get enough human sacrifices over the weekend! This might turn out to be the most depressing NBA recap I’ve ever written. Stay positive JB! Stay positive JB! Thanks inner monologue… Any other advice to help me get through today’s news? Well, remember when in Interstellar it looked like there was no hope due to another Dust Bowl, then he just finds the newly incarnated NASA – – Wait, how does any of that make sense, they didn’t know he was alive yet he was their best hope!? And then there’s that giant plot hole with the planet with the – – it just makes no – – uhughuhguhguhguhgug – – – – F, now my inner monologue is injured… Here’s how the weekend of death went down in NBA action:

Happy Thanksgiving Razzball Nation! This is my last daily recap for the week, so wishing everyone a happy Turkey Day where we can take a day off hoops, watch football, then shame eat pounds of leftovers while watching Goran Dragic standing idly by as he gets no usage for the Suns this weekend…

But what better way to sendoff into the Holiday weekend with the Six-Foot-Turkey himself, Dr. Ersan Ilyasova. While he’s averaging under 21 minutes a game in the past five games (That doesn’t look very scary!), the consistency is kinda preposterous right now. Is exactly in 20-21 minutes in five straight as Kidd apparently knows Ersan’s optimal usage, and has scored 13+ points in all of them. Multi-3PTM in three of those five, grabbing a few boards, and actually a semi-usable player right now off 13/9/0/1/0 and two treys last night. It’s bottom-end 12er worthy, but in limited-move RCLs, I grabbed him Monday to use for a four-game week and like him for matchups play. A low-end ThrAGNOF with some boards! What the wire is for, and even though he’s owned in 44% of Yahoo leagues, it’s a little inflated by dead/auto-draft teams given his silly pre-draft ranks by a lot of experts. I’m keeping that Turkey fresh and might even hold on through next week as well, and then gobbling down the rest of my leftovers before week 7 and the Bucks’ two-game week. Threes ain’t got no face! And I’d be just plain sick of all the Turkey leftovers at that point… Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy hoops action:

So when I approached JB about returning to the Razzball fold, my first suggestion was to do something on wing players. As any veteran fantasy hoops junkie knows, the dudes with the SG/SF designation are superly dooperly useful. Most teams have multiple non-PG and non-PF slots, plus you have the UTIL slots. Old-timers have some fond memories of crazy Latrell Sprewell, a member of the Wing Hall of Fame, and conveniently forgetting how he choked P.J. Carlesimo so you didn’t feel bad about clicking him into your lineup.

Anyway, some other ideas were floated to JB, but he wouldn’t give up on the wings. I began to wonder if his obsession with the concept had anything to do with basketball.

It started with an email where JB confessed to being hungry for wings, then continued with mentions of wing sauce, wing hotness, wing bones, wing grease on hairy chests, wing-covered women’s underwear, and then finally an email in 200-point type that said “ME LIKE WINGS” with this image attached:

So this is why preseason wrap ups are tough. News flutters around willy-nilly like that bag that dumbass had an obsession with in American Beauty. And most of the news has about as much meaning…

First there’s Razzball lovebrows Anthony Davis spraining his wrist last night, and Monty Williams held him out as a precaution. Davis wanted to come back into the game, but Monty was like, “nuh uh, girlfriend! Shaniqua don’t live here no mo’!” Not to be out-overreactioned, Russell Westbrook also sprained his wrist on Sunday. Neither are serious, and this is why the wrap-ups are eye-roll fests through preseason. A lot of worthless mud to pan through just to get a fleck of gold. (True story – when I was like 8 or 9 years old, we did a class field trip to pan for gold and a portly kid got a tiny mote worth, the only one to get any. Then I traded him some peanut butter-filled chocolate my mom packed me for lunch for it. Talk about knowing your audience!)

Can you believe we’re a week away from opening tip?! This is the last preseason wrap until next Tuesday to preview the season, and daily from there. Can’t wait for this shizz to start! My final re-rankings will be out tomorrow, we’ll get to meet some new writers, and two final preseason Pods (tomorrow and next Tuesday) before we get some real games to talk about on air. Here’s what else has gone on in the world of preseason NBA action:

Well, there’s certainly been no lack of news this past week! No fantasy sport is safe from injuries, even in the preseason! Well, maybe fantasy fishing (yes, I’ve played it!).

As reported everywhere, even on tweens.com (I hope that’s not a real site and/or not an illegal site! Not gonna find out in my web history!), Kevin Durant has a broken bone in his foot, and the initial timetable in 6-8 weeks. But of course given it’s KD, and we’re nearing the home stretch of the fantasy drafting window, there’s all sorts of shrouds of uncertainty. First there’s surgery vs. non-surgery, which I’m guessing the latter involves rum and Jobu, but I’m no voodoo. Despite my limited knowledge on Jones fractures, I am hoping he opts for the surgery. If he doesn’t get it, it seems like Durant is playing with fire. We saw the Thunder bring back Westbrook earlier than expected last year with his knee issues, then he suffered re-injury (of course, causation is merely speculative). Which leads to point number two – either way you look at it surgery vs. non-surgery, Jones fractures are all sorts of tricky. Lingering issues, re-injuring it, it’s all up in the air. My perspective is Durantula has been healthy for virtually his whole career, spanning 7 seasons. So I’m optimistic he can be a fast healer, and splitting the difference of 6-8 weeks to 7 weeks out. Given when news broke, that’s missing just over a month of the regular season.

In my re-ranks I published yesterday, I only moved KD down to 2 with Anthony Davis up to #1 (side note – found this article with NBA MVP odds, how can I hop in on this?! Brow 25/1?! I’ll throw $10 on him to win $250!). In H2H, if you’re a confident manager, you can stream and bear a .500 record for a month. Then you have KD for the playoffs! I think if you try to sell right now in a panic if you’ve already drafted, or let him fall too far in your draft, you’ll be kicking yourself in the postseason. All that said, in Roto, I’m probably letting him fall until at least the middle of the first round. Having by far the best per-game player for the fantasy playoffs weeks obviously doesn’t matter. Hopefully by early next week there’s a little more clarity on Durant, and I’ll have one final rankings revision next Wednesday. Here’s what else has gone down in fantasy hoops since the last wrap-up (which will be daily during the season!):

With the full 2014-15 Fantasy Basketball Rankings now complete, let’s take a look at the double digit rounds. The debate over Scrub A or Scrub B. We don’t want no scrubs! Well, play in a shallower league then! People say you win your leagues in the later rounds. I don’t know who these people are, but they’re probably jaded after drafting Derrick Rose in the 2nd round last year. Where’s the violins?! What I would say, is if you hit on one guy in the late rounds with 30th or 40th overall value, you’re set. 75% of your last picks are probably going to be drops. So 75% of your late picks will be passes to Brandon LaFell. Wrong sport! Still bitter about how bad he was… Go Kelvin Benjamin! Aka my favorite Panther. Stay focused! Here’s my top 150 for the 2014-15 Fantasy Basketball Season (based on 9-cat H2H):

With the full 2014-15 Fantasy Basketball Rankings now complete, let’s take a look at the top 100. After a week filled with triumphs, successful trades going through, and possibly the biggest news of the offseason – Jared Dudley getting moved. I couldn’t finish the top 100 without knowing where Dudley would be! The ramifications would be catastrophic! So past 75 you’re starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel. The dregs of the cask. Which means it’s sleeper land! Bring out the sleeper patrol! And a lot of times if you hit on just one of these and avoid injuries in your early rounds, you’re set for a playoff run. Here’s my top 100 for the 2014-15 Fantasy Basketball Season (based on 9-cat H2H):

So we’re through my top-50 and now getting into the mid-rounds. We’re taking this through the whole top 100, but some of these are going to be gold and some fool’s gold. As in, Larry Sanders‘ gold. If I got to the end of a rainbow and Larry Sanders was there, I’d ask for a refund…

Through the Top 20 and Top 50, I think I’ve done the rankings pretty well. They tell you towards the end of high school, “the smart ones get the As, but the most successful get Bs.” I might have made that up since I never studied for virtually anything and got Bs… But a 3.00 GPA thus far sounds about right! Rankings are based on my final updated top 200, comparing them to the FantasyPros aggregate Draft Day Rankings along with Basketball Monster’s Total Value for 9-cat leagues on the season. Slim then grades me. I asked him, “will you give me As if I show you my double-Ds?” He then flunked me… Here’s a look back at the Top 75 for the 2013-14 Fantasy Basketball Season: